Well, there’s a new streaming movie service on the block and it’s both brilliant and absolutely absurd. Called Zediva, it allows subscribers to watch movies online that are not available on services such as Netflix for another month because they are still in the DVD sales window.

Sounds great? Sure, but the way it operates makes me smile and simultaneously want to smash my head into the nearest wall.

What Zediva does is rents you a physical DVD and plays it for you in one of their remote DVD players. Being Internet enabled, these devices stream the movie to your web browser as you sit at home.

Early testers are reporting that when they have tried to watch most of the movies available, such as the recent 127 Hours, the system has reported that they are already “rented out” to someone else.

So while the system to get round the usual studio imposed release window nonsense is quite clever, it is also ridiculously old fashioned. It’s 2011 and we’re relying on physical DVDs and DVD players? Getting messages that someone else has rented the movie needed already?

These problems were largely solved a decade ago and any torrent, streaming, or decent file-hosting site today can provide a better service than this in the blink of an eye.

Except Hollywood won’t let them, legally at least.

Why do people turn to piracy? Because they can’t stop laughing at people like Zediva who are undoubtedly brilliant but are reduced to jumping through hoops because the industry refuses to change.